


Saltwater for the Soul

by AustinB



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Angst, Attempted Assault, Blow Jobs, Bottom Bucky, Bucky/Nat broship, Captivity, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Pirates, Romance, Smut, Stockholm Syndrome, Switching, Top Steve Rogers, and rumlow being a creep in general, badass lady pirates, but not really because these donuts actually love each other for real, mentions of winterbones, prisoner, the pirate au that probably already exists somewhere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-04-30 04:26:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5150204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AustinB/pseuds/AustinB
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve is a Captain in the Navy, but finds something is missing from his life.</p><p>Captain Barnes commands The Winter Soldier, the most notorious pirate ship of the last century.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Captain "A Mean Left Hook" Barnes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We’ll leave you at the next port,” he says. “I trust you’ll be able to find your way back home.” The sleeves of his dark blue tunic are rolled up to his forearms, and the bands of black tattoos on his left arm spill out, ending sharply at his wrist. Barnes glances down at his arm, where Steve’s gaze has stuck. When he looks back up, there’s a smirk playing about his lips.

“Fuck, did we have to drop anchor so far away?” Clint bemoans from behind Bucky as they pick through the underbrush.

“We shouldn’t even be here in the first place, so yes,” Bucky replies, swatting branches out of his face as he leads his crew toward the town. With Fort Fury sitting high on the hill above New York, they shouldn’t be within 100 leagues of this place, but Thor’s bathhouse is an annual tradition Bucky can’t bring himself to break, not to mention Tony would mutiny if he did.

They’re running low on some things anyway, and port was necessary. He’ll send Rumlow to place the orders and make sure everything is loaded after he takes his respite in the steam room.

When the glow of lantern light appears from between the trees ahead, Bucky can’t keep the smile from his face. He’s tired in more ways than one, sore and something else he can’t put his finger on, but a roll in the sack with the next blonde he comes across should do the trick.

Bucky holds up his left fist as he stops to make sure the coast is clear of Navymen. Clint bumps into the back of him anyway and he shoots a beleaguered look over his shoulder. Clint shrugs diffidently.

There’s only drunkards and whores on the street, so Bucky strolls off, and the six sailors behind him scatter to their tasks, the bars or the brothels.

Clint and Tony rush ahead of him, bickering and shoving at each other to find the right alleyway. Clint trips Tony to get the upper hand and knocks on the big wooden door. It’s made of heavy, rich logs, carved with runes and a curling pattern depicting a Viking ship. There’s no sign above it or lantern to help patrons find their way. If they want to find it, they will.

The Swedish proprietor never knows when to expect them, but does him the honor of all but closing the place down for him when his crew arrives.

When it’s Bruce who opens the door, Tony shoulders ahead of Clint.

“Thank God,” he says, and slips in under his arm. “Bruce, save me from these heathens.”

“Hello, Captain,” Bruce says to Bucky and nods at Clint before waving them in.

He leads them to the dining room and before he can slip away to fetch them a hot dinner, Bucky asks “Is Thor in?”

“Thor is always in.”

Bucky’s body is already starting to relax in anticipation. Thor and his big hands give such good massages that Bucky can’t even be mad they don’t have a happy ending. This isn’t the sort of establishment the rest of his crew frequents on their port stops, even if sometimes he wishes it were. Thor, Jane, Pepper and Bruce specialize in sating the needs of the soul.

He eats enough fresh vegetables, fruits and poultry to last him another year, then sits in a private sauna while Bruce takes his clothes to the laundry.

Bucky closes his eyes as the last month at sea sloughs off him, out of his bones and mingles with the steam in the air. But his eyes pop open again. This is his favorite time of year, but something’s not right. He’s not terribly worried about the Navy fort up the hill. Since he took command of The Winter Soldier after Pierce’s untimely demise, the notoriety of the ship had actually decreased. While they still attacked privateers and merchant vessels, they no longer killed all—or any—of the passengers, if they can help it. That drops them lower on the Navy's priority list.

There’s a light knock on the door and Thor pokes his head in. His blonde hair is pulled back into a ponytail and Bucky’s blood thrums.

“Captain!” he enthuses, entering the room to pull him up by his arms and usher him down the hall to a quiet room. There’s a padded table that he lays face down on and before long is melting into a puddle, drifting blissfully between sleep and nirvana with Thor’s strong, warm hands wringing the tension from his muscles.

He protests groggily when Thor takes his magic hands away, and with a deep chuckle, Thor obliges him.

When his time is up twice over, Thor slaps him on the ass.

“Alright, get your biggie off my table.”

When he’s bathed, dried and dressed in fresh-smelling clothes, he says goodbye to Thor and Bruce for another year and takes himself to the pub near the dock. Though the chill night air makes him tense again, he’s glad for it. He’s been half hard since Thor put his hands on him, and frustration is the very last thing he needs clouding his mind right now. Getting as drunk as he intends to in this state of mind may very well make him mean, but it won’t stop him from doing it.

The rest of his crew are in the back of the crowded pub, already having gratified their bodily needs. They raise their mugs to him and call out a raucous cheer that barely raises above the din of the place. When he reaches their table, someone presses a mug into his hand and he gulps half of it in one go.

They cheer louder.

* * *

The quill hovers over the parchment. Last minute fears make him hesitate. This position is everything he ever wanted in life, everything his mother wanted for him, and now he’s going to throw it all away?

There’s so much Steve wants to say, to defend himself and his reasons. But he reminds himself that he doesn’t have to defend anything. Keep it brief, to the point. There’s nothing he can change by writing it in a resignation letter, anyway.

He makes one stroke onto the parchment when there’s a knock at his door. Sam doesn’t wait for his answer to swing it open and shut it swiftly behind him. Steve’s almost relieved for the interruption.

“The Winter Soldier’s been spotted anchored two miles down the shoreline,” he says as he approaches Steve’s desk. Steve puts the quill back in the bottle of ink and stands. “Should I call in more men?”

“No, by the time we get enough men and get there, they’ll be gone. Get into plainclothes and meet me at The Krakken with the five men you can rouse quickest.”

Sam nods and is gone. Steve opens the bottom desk drawer and rifles through several posters before finding Captain Barnes’. He pulls it out and sets it on his desk as he swaps his blue and brass coat for a plain white tunic and brown vest.

He has a distinctive face, Captain Barnes, rakish and handsome, and Steve will have no trouble recognizing him, but he’ll bring the poster for the others. He tucks an inconspicuous pistol in the waistband of his canvas khaki pants and straps a dagger to his ankle. Pirates are always a little unpredictable, which makes them dangerous, but Barnes, one of the most wanted men in the country, has a reputation for being even more so.

After growing up an orphan on The Winter Soldier, at only 19, he mutinied and took control of the ship from the most ruthless and notorious pirate of the century. Though his attacks leave a miniscule body count in comparison to his predecessor, he’s strong and a good fighter, unafraid to cross swords with Navymen and other pirates alike. 

Steve wonders at the beating of his heart as his shorboots quietly clip clop on the cobblestones. He hasn't sailed in almost a year, relegated to strategic routing behind a desk for his vocal interference into bureaucratic bullshit, and it's not often the Navy gets jurisdiction over criminals at the port town. The fact that it's Captain Barnes he'll be chasing raises the stakes, and his heartbeat.

Sam and the promised five men are waiting for him at one of the bars in the town below the fort twenty minutes later. He and Sam go in the front, while the others split up and wait outside the front and back doors.

Barnes isn’t there, and the bartender hasn’t seen him, so they move silently to the next, a short walk down the cobblestone street. It’s more crowded than the first, and he and Sam shoulder their way to the bar. While Steve talks to the bartender, Sam glances casually about.

The bartender isn’t paying him much attention, and Steve doesn’t want to pull rank and risk spooking the pirates, so he exercises patience. But Sam elbows him in the arm.

“Behind you, in the corner.”

Steve turns his head to glance over his shoulder, and across the crowded space filled with raucous sailors and smoke, he looks straight into two icy blue eyes.

* * *

 _That’s_ what he needs, Bucky thinks when his eyes catch on the blonde brick house at the bar. _Those_ hands on him, _those_ lips on his. The dark man standing next to him shouldn’t be a problem. Bucky’s charmed partners apart plenty of times, and if he wants to join, all the better.

What he really needs is several solid hours, but he’ll take one or two if the man can spare it. Hell, twenty minutes would be better than the quick, drunken encounters with Rumlow he’s had to make do with for the last year. What he really needs is to take his time, to make someone gasp, scream his name. Surely that would ease the ache in his soul.

When the man turns his face and looks straight at him, Bucky feels heat roll down his spine; god he's _gorgeous_. But then the blonde man starts walking toward him. His cock is thrilled, but his brain is already sending the signal for him to turn to Clint and say “Back to the ship.”

Because the way he holds his shoulders, the way he walks—he’s a Navyman.

Clint didn’t hear, but Tony did, despite being in the middle of shouting across the table, and the two of them rise in tandem. The movement tips off the rest of the crew, and Bucky taps Dugan on the arm as he passes by him, toward the back door, one hand on the hilt of his pistol.

When he pushes out the back door, two Navymen are waiting. Bucky rushes forward, knowing Tony and Dugan are right behind him. He doesn’t have his sword at his hip, in an attempt to be inconspicuous, and he doesn’t want to use his pistol if he doesn’t have to, so he clocks one of the Navymen across the jaw. When he goes down on the cobblestone, Bucky leaps over him and heads toward the mouth of the alley. There’s still a scuffle going on behind him, but he has at least five pirates to three Navymen at most.

He skids to a stop when the dark-skinned man from the pub appears at the mouth of the alley, inches from him. Bucky flashes him a grin before swinging. He’s more prepared than the poor soul probably still on his ass outside the pub backdoor, and they dodge a few of each other’s punches until Bucky lands one. He takes the man’s momentary imbalance to shove his shoulder into his chest and clear himself a path to the shoreline. They roll together into the street, and Bucky gets a knee into the man’s gut and is on his feet running in the next second.

He runs down the shore, where Tony is up to his knees in the water, holding onto the rowboat full of his crew. They leap into it, rocking the boat dangerously close to the water’s edge. The shoreline is dark and silent, but his relief is short-lived when he turns back to count heads.

“One, two, three, four…where the hell is Barton?”

He gets only shrugs and silence.

_“Goddammit.”_

* * *

The blonde pirate seem intently unimpressed as he sits in the cell next to two drunks who’re passed out and leaning on each other. Steve sits at the little desk in the fort’s jail, filling out the arrest paperwork. He’d sent Sam back to his room to clean up the split lip he got while brawling with Captain “a mean left hook” Barnes.

“What’re you looking so upset for?” Cecil Bradsworth says, from where he’s rifling through the drunkards’ pockets. Steve seriously doubts that’s his true name, but he’s written it on the report anyway. He has an arrow tattooed just under his left clavicle, a diving hawk under his right, and a breezy disposition.

“You’ll never see him again. It’s not like he’ll be coming back for me.”

Steve wouldn’t have doubted it if it had been any other pirate he’d ever met, but Captain Barnes seems to live by a moral code his predecessor hadn’t. If he’s the type who won’t kill anyone aboard the ships he loots unless he has to, he might be the kind who returns for a crewmate.

“Though he might be pissed,” Bradsworth continues. “This always was his favorite port.”

Steve decides to stick around tonight, just in case. A blank piece of parchment is all that waits for him in his room, anyway, and he doesn’t feel like filling it up just yet.

He goes down to the kitchen and requests two plates from the Cook. He sets one on the desk in the jail room, and slides the other through the slat to Bradsworth, who takes it, suspicious at first, then merry.

“Don’t suppose you’d poison me before you get to hang me to impress your Colonel,” he says, then tucks into the slop with gusto.

“They’re not going to hang you,” Steve says in between bites.

“Of course they are.”

Steve wonders if this is the calm of a man truly reconciled with death or a man who knows someone is coming to get him.

They don’t speak again, and Steve cracks open the cover of a well-worn novel while Bradsworth alternates between trying to steal the drunkards’ shoes without waking them and doing handstand pushups in the middle of the cell.

Just before dawn, Steve hears a clank in the hallway, like someone dropped a goblet against the floorboards. Bradsworth is either asleep or pretending to be, and doesn’t acknowledge the sound. Steve draws his pistol, and as he reaches for the doorhandle, it swings in on him, knocking him against the wall.

It’s not often a person can get the drop on him, but two men descend on him at once, and bind his hands behind his back. One of the men he recognizes from the pub, dark-haired with a short beard and an easy smile. The other is dark, too, but in another way.

As they’re shoving a gag in his mouth and relieving his belt of the cell keys, Captain Barnes himself slides into the small jailroom. His arms are covered in a moss green sweater, but Steve knows his left arm bears bands of tattoos, some Maori, some Haitian, some Indian. Barnes doesn’t spare him a glance, just catches the keys this crewman lobs at him and opens the cell. Bradsworth slips out and flashes Barnes a rueful grin. Barnes slaps his cheek playfully, then turns to Steve. His eyes widen with recognition, then narrow.

Barnes motions with his hand and his crewmen lift Steve to his feet and pull him after them. He drags his feet and throws his shoulder into one of them to knock them off balance, but Barnes grabs his arm and he feels the point of a dagger at his ribs. There’s a watchman unconscious or dead by the door to the courtyard and another lying in the open space between the jail and the mostly unused wrought iron door at the southwest corner of the fort. It sits open tonight, guarded by a pirate who waves them forward.

“Stop!” Steve recognizes the clear voice as Sam’s, and fear floods through him. If Sam gets caught in crossfire because of his own stupid decisions, it will kill him.

“Shit,” Barnes growls at his ear and spins him around so Sam can see him bound and gagged.

Sam stops at the jailhouse door and moves the barrel of his pistol skyward.

“Stay where you are!” Barnes commands. Sam obeys as the pirates move backward out the wrought iron door and down toward the docks.

The Winter Soldier is there, sails falling open as the pirates run toward it. Barnes is still moving Steve backward slowly. Sam hasn’t followed, but Steve has no doubt he’s waking the Colonel and putting snipers on the wall.

Steve’s feet hit the dock and then he’s walking backward up a gangplank. The lapping of waves on the beach below isn't soothing tonight.

“We can’t _take_ him!” someone hisses.

“We have to,” Barnes replies, close to his ear. “And stay the fuck down.” Barnes crouches next to the rail, with one hand wrapped around Steve’s calf to keep him upright and still. Steve’s stomach is dropping into his shoes as the gangplank is pulled in and they start slowly floating out of the harbor.

A shot rings out from the fort and splinters fly up from the railing near the rear cabin, where Cecil Bradsworth is crouching. He drops lower below the rails.

“Dammit Barton, if you die now I’ll kill you,” Barnes growls. When they’re out of pistol range, Bucky shouts orders over the deck and it springs to life. Sails are opened and Steve jerks as they pick up speed. Barnes grabs his arm and hauls him toward the hatch and down the stairs into the hold.

There’s a cell made of criss crossed iron bars at the end, and he throws Steve unceremoniously inside. The door swings shut with a creak and a clang, the lock clicking into place. Barnes doesn’t look back at him when he returns to the deck.

* * *

The crew sleeps mostly in the hold, in hammocks strung two-high parallel to the ship. They give him hateful looks that night and the next morning, but otherwise don’t pay much attention to him, which is more than Steve could’ve hoped for.

Captain Barnes eats with the crew in the hold, some leaning against barrels and crates, some standing with their plates in their hands. They talk lewd nonsense and laugh.

“What about him,” someone says, jerking their chin toward the cell. Barnes returns his plate to the galley and walks the length of the ship to stand in front of the bars. Steve is sitting with his back to the wall, forearms propped up on bent knees. He looks up into icy blue eyes.

“We’ll leave you at the next port,” he says. “I trust you’ll be able to find your way back home.” The sleeves of his dark blue tunic are rolled up to his forearms, and the bands of black tattoos spill out, ending at his wrist. Barnes glances down at his arm, where Steve’s gaze has stuck. When he looks back up, there’s a smirk playing about his lips.

When the crew has all gone about their tasks, Barton slides a plate of food under the bars to Steve.

“Knew your name wasn’t Bradsworth,” Steve mutters, and the pirate laughs. 

“Clint Barton. Not much damage you can do with that knowledge, I suppose.” He thrusts a tin cup of water through the bars. “Don’t worry too much. The Captain’s a decent man, he won’t let any harm come to you from us pirates.”

By all accounts, Clint seems to be right. The pirates don’t pay Steve much mind, and Barnes—who some call Captain and some call Bucky—seems well-liked by his crew. Jovial and familiar, he takes no offense to their jokes at his expense as they sit and play cards at night. There are names carved into the hull, covering the curved walls from ceiling beams to floorboards, and when someone wins a hand, they make a show of adding a tally under their name.

It’s too cold and windy to play above deck, as Steve had always liked to do when he was sailing, and over the next few days it provides him the opportunity to study his captors.

Barnes has good rapport with all of his crew, but his relationship with Rumlow seems strained. Steve may be able to use that to his advantage.

Most of them drink in moderation, some to excess and some not at all.

It reminds him of his time on the sea, fresh out of the academy, wearing his blue and white coat, heart sick from the loss of his mother. The older soldiers plied him and his classmates with ale and wine when they could nick it and taught them card games and drinking songs. Then, when new recruits came in each year, it was Steve doing the plying and the teaching.

It reminds him of the camaraderie they shared, being together so long on the sea, and when they came upon The Winter Soldier when he was 16, the togetherness he felt with them in fear, the terror and thrill of coming face to face with a handsome pirate with a thin band of black tattoos on his shoulder, who trained his pistol at Steve's head, took a long look at him and didn’t pull the trigger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did a shit ton of research on pirate ships when I wrote the novel Nautical Miles (*cough* available on Amazon *cough*) so I figured I'd put it to good use on something people would actually read.
> 
> Let me know what you think. :) 
> 
> As always, thank you, my friends.


	2. Caribbean Shoals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His eyes are cerulean, blue like the Caribbean shoals on a hot summer day, when Bucky was 18 and the sea was freedom instead of a prison. Maybe he’d hit his head on the hatch, or maybe Steve’s eyes are the window to his soul. Either way, he does as the Navyman commanded, fishing the key from his belt and clumsily throwing the lock.

“It’s been a week and they’re nowhere on the horizon,” Bucky says to Clint as he stands at the railing, surveying the expanse of sea. “They’re not coming.”

“Great, now we can toss him,” Tony offers, from where he’s scrubbing down the deck with a mop.

“It’s that kind of trash that got you mop duty in the first place, Stark,” Clint reminds him.

“No, it’s three weeks to Charleston. We can feed him until then. I’ll leave him tied on the shore before we leave. By the time he alerts anyone we’ll be long gone.”

“You’re going soft, Soldier, you know The Red wouldn’t have—” Tony chokes on his words and the combined force of Clint and Bucky’s glares. Bucky raises his voice so the rest of the crew can hear him.

“Do you know what _we’ll_ be if anything happens to him? **Dead.** The Navy doesn’t take kindly to the abuse of their own. So let’s consider this a vacation for the Navyman and once his use has run its course we’ll drop him gently at the next port and go on our merry way. Aye?”

A chorus of _aye_  rains down on him.

“Aye _what_?”

“Aye, Captain.”

The mention of the name is all it takes for Bucky to send for his dinner and a cask of wine to his cabin, and when Rumlow knocks late into the night, when the raucous laughter below deck is at its highest, he lets him in.

* * *

Bucky is still half drunk early the next morning when the tossing of the ship throws him out of bed. He stumbles out his door and the stinging spray of rain and seawater nearly knocks him back. Men are tumbling up from the hold and he shouts orders at them that are nearly blown away by the wind. But they know well enough what to do.

A crack of lightning splits the air, illuminating the deck in a flash. There’s almost no light to work by, the clouds covering the moon and stars, so Bucky dives for the hatch, slipping on the wet wood and tumbling down the stairs ass first.

“Dernier, the heavy lanterns,” he shouts, once he's righted himself. Down here, the waves crashing against the hull is almost deafening, but he can hear Steve shouting at him.

He can’t make out a word he’s saying, and his tumble down the stairs has made his vision a little shaky, so he staggers over to the cell, a surge of the sea making him fall against it. Face to face with him, Bucky can hear his words loud and clear.

“Let me out! I can help!”

His eyes are cerulean, blue like the Caribbean shoals on a hot summer day, when Bucky was 18 and the sea was freedom instead of prison. Maybe he’d hit his head on the hatch, or maybe Steve’s eyes are the window to his soul. Either way, he does as the Navyman commanded, fishing the key from his belt and clumsily throwing the lock. He doesn’t wait to see if Steve will attack him from behind, just grabs the lanterns Dernier holds out for him and runs back up the stairs.

With some light to see by, he can help the crew secure the deck. He can see Steve every so often in his peripheral, moving in tandem with the pirates, grabbing a rope in front of Logan and Tony, striking the jib in one swift motion. When the gale knocks Peter’s feet out from under him, Steve grabs his arm before he can go toppling over the rail and into the churning waters.

Steve surveys the deck with efficiency, eyes locking on Bucky where he stands, drenched to the bone and at a loss. Steve could run his ship with ease; Bucky is superfluous. But Steve is yelling at him again, running toward him across the deck. Bucky looks up for whatever danger Steve sees. A rope has come loose and the fore boom is swinging around toward him. Before his brain can send the signal to duck, Steve is crashing into him, bodily tackling him against his own cabin door. Over Steve’s shoulder, Bucky watches the boom make a half revolution before his men catch the rope again.

Steve is still holding him there, pinned between cold wood and a wall of hard, warm muscle. The worst of the rain has passed, and the winds are dying down, so he can hear Steve’s breathing, his chest heaving against his own. Steve is staring at him, his gaze jumping between his eyes, and then down to his lips. Bucky’s body responds despite himself, buzzing on adrenaline and touch and Steve's attention. It doesn’t feel like Rumlow wrung an orgasm from him just hours ago; it feels like he’s never come before in his life. The tension that twists in his gut is almost painful.

He could reach behind him for the door handle and they’d both tumble inside. He could kick the door closed and have Steve all to himself.

“Permission to dry off, Captain.” Bucky's never been less happy to hear Tony's voice.

Bucky nods, eyes still locked with Steve’s, who then drops his arms from where they bracketed Bucky’s shoulders and steps back.

“You too. Come on,” he says, heading for the hatch. Steve follows Bucky and is locked back in his cell without so much as a peep of dissent. The pirates gather near the kitchen and pour themselves cups of whisky. They joke amiably, but it’s quieter, the threat of death still so near.

Bucky watches as Peter takes another cup of whisky and the blanket from his hammock over to the cell and holds them out through the bars. When Steve hesitates, Peter thrusts them out a little further, until Steve takes them. Peter says something and Steve shakes his head. Tony and Clint have stopped to watch too, and when Peter tilts his cup to Steve in salud, so do they. Steve drinks with them, and over the rim of his tin cup, his eyes flit to Bucky’s, who lifts his own cup toward him.

* * *

Steve has made a lot of stupid mistakes in his life, not the least of which include trying to strike up a conversation with Rumlow, who seems to always be puttering below deck, to maybe get an advantage over him or learn something that could be useful later.

Which leads to his current situation, schooling his hands to not curl into fists, while Rumlow stands in front of the bars, breeches untied and pushed low enough on his hips that his cock bobs free, half hard and growing taller every moment. He reaches into his pocket and Steve sees the brass flash of a key. Steve knows he can take him, but then what? 

He's spared a fight when Captain Barnes’ voice rings out. It's icy, full of promise, and it makes a chill pass through him.

“Rumlow.”

Fear, then hatred flashes across Rumlow’s face before he evens it out. He pulls up his breeches, ties them, then turns and walks past his Captain up onto the deck. Barnes spares Steve a glare, as if it were his fault, and disappears through the hatch after Rumlow.

Alone again, Steve pulls the sharpened wood splint from his boot and stretches his right arm out between the bars. He can just reach the porthole and, after three nights of working at it, it pops free. The note in the bottle is written on pages of a book swiped from a pirate's hammock, in blood from his bitten finger, corked with strips of fabric from his pants and wax from a candle, all nicked from the night of the storm. He slips the bottle out the porthole and latches it back into place.

He hopes the pieces of conversation he’s overheard and his own sense of direction add up to the correct bearing he’s written for Sam, if he even finds it. The odds are not good, but they’re better than nothing.

Even if he could incapacitate all 24 of the pirates—and that’s a big _if_ —there’s no way he can sail a galleon ship by himself. While the crew seems tight-knit, he’s not so sure threatening one with death or imprisonment would be enough to motivate the others to help him sail back to Fort Fury.

The risk is too great, especially since doing nothing will most likely end in him being released at port unharmed. He has no doubt Barnes will stay true to his word.

This certainty should probably worry him, considering Barnes is a notorious pirate. But unless he’s a convincingly charming sociopath—which is still a possibility—Steve just can’t see any evil in him.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

* * *

It’s a quiet evening in the hold, and as Barnes takes a few steps nearer to Steve’s cell to grab a clementine, he calls out.

“You look like a gambling man.”

Barnes raises a brow. He glances over his shoulder at the poker game going on, then steps closer.

“Only if the odds are in my favor.”

“I’ll bet I can beat you at whatever game you like.” Steve is leaning his left shoulder against the bars of his cell, arms crossed to affect confidence.

Bucky laughs. It's a pleasant sound that makes Steve’s lips curve automatically.

“I’d take that bet, but you have nothing to offer me if I win.” Bucky saunters over to lean his left shoulder against the bars, mirroring Steve with only inches between them. His hair is loose about his shoulders tonight, not pulled back into the bun at the nape of his neck that he seems to prefer. 

“But I do,” Steve counters. “When you drop me off at the next port, I won’t arrest you." 

They're close enough that when Bucky laughs again, Steve can see the corners of his eyes crinkle and he finds his cheeks warming.

“And if you win?”

“As I am but your humble guest, my price is low indeed. A cup of wine.”

Bucky is smiling at him, looking him over thoroughly, then goes to the kitchen and returns with a deck of cards and a cribbage board. He pulls a barrel up to the bars for a table and a crate for himself to sit upon.

“You’re on.”

They trade gentle ribbing when the other gets a good hand, and when Steve wins, Bucky scoffs. 

“What the hell?”

Steve was a little worried it would backfire on him, but Bucky has an easy kind of grace, good-humored and amiable.

“Two outta three,” he demands, slamming his fist over the cards on their table, but Steve shakes his head.

“No way. I demand my prize. And my name on the wall with a tally.” He gestures to the names scratched all along the hull, some generations old, far more names than those still aboard.

“I didn’t agree to those terms, but I suppose it is only fair.” Bucky retrieves a cup of wine and hands it through the bars to Steve. He pulls a dagger from his belt and reaches up to the wall next to the cell. His body makes a fine line, lean and firm, his breeches hugging his ass and thighs. Steve blushes when Bucky squints over his shoulder at him, the corners of his lips pulling down, like he’s trying not to grin.

“Does this mean you’re going to arrest me after all?”

Steve shakes his head. “Only that the option is available.”

* * *

Bucky tries not to think about what a terrible idea it is when he plops down at the table he'd left next to Steve's cell the next night. Tries not to think about how he'd looked forward to this all day and the happy look on Steve's face when he sets up the chess board and says:

"What are your terms?"

“For every piece I capture, you answer a question. For every piece you capture, I’ll answer a question. Deal?”

Bucky rolls his eyes. "Steve, could you be more transparent?"

The look of feigned innocence makes Bucky laugh.

"What are you—I don't know what you're—"

"Please. You want to learn more about the ship so you can report back to your Colonel."

Steve throws his hands out. "Why does everyone think I'm trying to impress the Colonel?"

"Aren't you?"

"No. And I don't want to know about the ship, I want to know about you."

Bucky looks up sharply, but Steve won't meet his eyes. He's chewing on his lip, a pretty blush staining his cheeks.

"Is that a...ruby?" Steve asks, eyeing the chess board. Bucky grins. These assholes had lost a pawn months ago, and he'd been using a gold coin in its stead, but thought a gem would be rather more impressive tonight. 

"Oh, that little thing, yeah." It's a little smaller than the actual pawns, but it's the largest gem Bucky's ever come across, and Pierce had even had a penchant for them.

Bucky draws first blood, though he suspects it's a tactical maneuver on Steve’s part.

“Why did you join the Navy?”

“I wanted to help people, and my family needed the money.”

"What's your favorite part of the day?" Steve asks, just to surprise him, get him to drop his guard and let something important slip. It's innocuous, but Bucky has to think about it. He can't say _talking with you_.

"Sunset. In the summer it's a relief, and that purple-pink reflection on the water..."

Steve is looking a little wistful, so the next chance he gets, Bucky asks:

"Why did you stop sailing?"

Steve takes a moment for phrasing before he answers. "I objected to the Navy's partnering with Hydra."

"Why?"

Steve shakes his head and nods at the board. "One piece, one question."

Bucky's next move is stupid and reckless, just so that he can ask, "Why?"

Steve looks bemused, then regretful. "I've seen the kinds of things they do." As he speaks, he casually makes his move— _damn, that's a good move—_ and then asks, "Why do you leave survivors, when Alexander never did?"

Bucky feels a little niggling of sense trying to reach him. This is too personal, too close. _Intimate._ But Navymen hate pirates, and Bucky doesn't want Steve to hate him.

"Why kill? All I want is their stores. I don't need people to fear me."

Bucky's sure the admiration he sees in Steve's eyes is only his own expression reflecting back at him.

* * *

Bucky takes a cup of wine to his cabin after dinner the next night, to spare himself the temptation of playing cards with Steve again. It had been the best time he’d had in months, maybe years, simply bullshitting with his Navyman prisoner.

When his book can't seem to hold his interest, he stands out by the railing, watching the intermittent starlight glint off the ripples on the sea. It’s been a dreary string of days, springtime storms making them all damp more often than not. The grey weather matches his mood.

Bucky flings the rest of his wine overboard and heads back to his cabin. Maybe he’ll try to read some more, maybe he’ll go over inventory again. Maybe it’ll take his mind off a pair of smiling blue eyes and capable hands. When he opens his cabin door, a voice stops him.

“Should I come in, Captain?” Rumlow asks from behind, a smirk in his voice. Bucky pauses a moment to consider it, but finds that a quick release no longer holds appeal to him. Just the sound of his voice makes him want to throw a punch, remembering the wretch standing imposingly in front of Steve.

“No,” he says, and closes the door behind him without a spared glance. He knows the anger he would see there, anyway. Knows Rumlow hates him for taking control of the ship after Pierce’s death. It could have gone either way; Bucky had been raised on the ship, but Rumlow had become Pierce’s favorite in the end, with his undying obedience.

Thinking of Pierce darkens his mood further, and though he’d rather not see Rumlow, or any of the rest of his crew at the moment, he takes a deck of cards and a couple dice from his desk and heads to the hold. A draught of sunshine to burn away the clouds that hang over him.

Dugan and Falsworth are belligerently arm wrestling, but the rest of them are passed out in their hammocks, as Bucky expected. Except there's movement coming from the shadows in the cell, two bodies rolling over each other on the floor.

Bucky’s vision goes black around the edges, then suddenly Rumlow is under him, his fist cracking over the other man’s already bloody lip.

Someone is saying his name, and it’s enough to make him come back to himself. He turns to Steve, who is red-faced, livid and glorious, and grabs his arm. Steve doesn’t flinch and allows himself to be towed out of the cell. Bucky shoots Dugan and Falsworth a glare, and they go back to pretending to arm wrestle as he hauls Steve up the stairs and shoves him into his cabin. He slams the door behind him and swipes the maps, books and old mugs off his desk in one swift movement. Gold coins go clattering and rolling across the floorboards as Bucky slams his fists on the cleared space.

He should've killed him, should've thrown him overboard, should've—

He turns for the door to act on one of those impulses, but Steve is standing there, holding his palms out to stop him. There's blood in his hair just above his ear and a bruise forming under his left eye, and it makes something dark and heady spark inside of him. 

* * *

Bucky’s eyes flash with fury and Steve has never seen anything quite so exquisite. Like a midsummer storm at sunset on the churning sea.

He’d drunk the cups of ale Peter and Clint had slipped him, and though the scuffle with Rumlow had sobered him, he feels drunk on Bucky’s nearness, the closeness of the walls around them.

Bucky moves in front of him and raises his hand to his face. Despite the fury simmering behind his eyes, his fingertips are gentle as they probe his bloody scalp, trace the bruise on his cheek.

“Tell me you at least got in a couple good shots.”

“I was about to get another before you interrupted.” Steve hears the indignation in his own voice, and to his surprise, Bucky smiles.

He’s close enough that Steve could lean in and kiss him. His heart is pounding and the adrenaline from the fight is making the impulse very hard to resist. But his self preservation wins out. 

“Do you remember me?” Bucky asks quietly. Steve’s breath catches. He wants to shout _of course I do! How could I forget you?_

The fact that Bucky remembers  _him_  is a surprise. He'd been so different then—barely 5' and skinny to the extreme, he looks like an entirely different person now.

He can't help but think Bucky looks different too, though not to the same extent. He's broader in shoulder, thinner in the face, and his eyes are different somehow. When the pirates had boarded his Navy vessel and he came face to face with the pirate who would later Captain the notorious ship, he saw no malice in his eyes. Only fear and unease. The eyes he looks into now are deeper, darker, and all more brilliant for it.

Steve can only whisper “Yes.” He watches Bucky’s Adam’s apple bob, and his tongue darts out to lick his lips.

“Why didn’t you kill me?”

“Why didn’t you?” Steve says, and it might be the rocking of the boat or Bucky might actually be a human magnet, but he’s sure he's starting to gravitate toward him.

"You were just a kid. You were—I couldn't."

Bucky’s hand is still resting gently on the side of Steve’s neck, and he wants it to move into his hair, around his shoulders. But Bucky takes it away when he steps back.

He shoves a blanket in Steve’s hand and gathers up the trappings from his desk that he'd scattered on the floor. He sets them in a pile back on the desk and gestures to the empty floor space.

“Sleep here.”

It’s warmer in the cabin than in the hold, and Steve uses the blanket as a pillow instead. It smells like wood and salt and Bucky.

Bucky douses the lantern and lies on his bed with his back turned. There are at least two dozen things in this room Steve could use to kill him, not to mention his own two hands, but Steve just closes his eyes, listening to Bucky’s even breathing and drifts to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who has read and commented on this! I appreciate your feedback so very much.


	3. Say it Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He feels full to bursting. Like he’s a glass that’s sat empty for so long he doesn’t know what to do when he’s suddenly filled.

Bucky dreams of him. Again.

It’ll be problematic, waking up with sticky warmth pooling in his pants, now that the subject of his dreams is sleeping a few feet away. But strangely, he feels looser than he has in months. It’s not what he truly wants, but yesterday Steve had smirked at him when he woke and asked what was for breakfast, and it’s a little bit difficult to think of life without him onboard.

In his dream he’s watching Steve pull the riggings. The summer sun is hot and he’s taken off his shirt. His muscles are taut as they pull under his skin and they're the only two aboard. Bucky is sitting on the stairs to the quarterdeck, leaning back onto the step behind him and wrapping one hand around his cock. Steve looks back over his shoulder, a filthy grin tugging at his lips. He saunters over and drops to his knees in front of Bucky, taking the length of his cock into his mouth at once.

“Port town!” Peter’s voice drifts into his dream and he wakes instantly, painfully hard and frustrated.

Charleston is ahead, where he’ll leave Steve. He swings his feet to the floor and looks down angrily at his cock tenting his breeches. He’s not going to be able to do anything like this. Steve is still asleep across the room, on his back with one arm flung across his eyes, so Bucky loosens the ties and strokes himself three, four times before he spills into the corner of his bedsheet.

When he opens his eyes again, Steve is sitting up watching him, lips parted. Bucky still has his hand on his cock and it throbs, sensitive and wanting. If he could look away, surely he’d be able to think up something to say, but he's hypnotized.

“Port's ahead,” he finally manages. He doesn’t mean to sound so breathless or forlorn, but he’s sure it shows.

“Yes,” Steve breathes, then rattles his head. “Yes,” he says again, solidly this time. Spell broken, Bucky stands and fastens his breeches. Steve gets to his feet and takes two steps toward him. There’s a blush on his cheeks and neck, dipping below his collar, and Bucky wants to taste his skin so badly he can feel it driving him mad.

“Bucky,” he says and it makes Bucky’s brain misfire. He wants Steve to say it again, to scream it. But it’s far too late for that.

“Bucky!” Clint shouts from just outside his door. “Hydra ship coming up fast.”

Steve follows him in a rush out the door. He takes the spyglass from Clint on the quarterdeck. Sure enough, the white flag bears the red skull of the Hydra shipping vessels.

Captain Schmidt has been arming his transport ships in response to Bucky’s attacks on them, and if they’re not slowing down when they see his red star flag flying above his sails, it means they’re looking for a fight. But their guns aren’t rolled out, and Captain Schmidt stands on the quarterdeck, hands clasped behind his back.

“He wants to make a deal,” Bucky says, then hands the spyglass back to Clint. “Correct course, take us past Charleston. We can’t get too close if this goes bad.” When he turns, he nearly bumps into Steve’s chest. “You, get back to my cabin.”

Steve holds his hands out to the side. “What am I gonna do, I don’t even have a sword.”

“Somethin’ tells me you wouldn’t need it. Now go, or I’ll make you.”

Steve’s eyes narrow and the muscles in his jaw jump as he clenches his teeth, and if Bucky weren’t on the verge of a skirmish, he’d like to get to know that look better. Steve turns and follows his command, though Bucky is under no illusions that he’ll stay there.

The ships slow as they approach one another.

“Captain Barnes,” Schmidt calls out. “How pleased I am to finally meet in person. I’ve been waiting a long time.”

“Almost as long as I’ve been avoiding it.” He forces his voice to stay light, teasing. If he can goad him into making the first move, they might have a chance.

“We had an agreement, and yet you keep looting my ships.”

“Whatever agreement you had with Captain Pierce expired when I put a knife in his heart.”

Schmidt leans forward and grips the railing with his leather gloves.

“There comes a heavy price for crossing me, Captain Barnes.”

Bucky shrugs lightly, but can't keep the bite out of his voice, “I’m a rich man.”

“This is the sort of price you can only pay once. _Stop_ looting my ships.”

“I don’t take kindly to threats, Captain Schmidt. Nor am I in the practice of taking orders.”

Schmidt leans back from the railing.

“So be it. I had hoped we could work together. But if you insist, I will sink your ship instead.”

“I’d like to see you tr—oh damn, he’s gone,” Clint trails off as Schmidt steps down the stairs to shout orders over the deck. Cannons roll out from the hull.

“Ready the—” Bucky calls down to the deck, but the cannons are already rolling. Even if they manage to outmaneuver the Red Skull, they’ll undoubtedly take some damage. They could drop anchor down the coast and send the rowboat for supplies, but they'll be sitting ducks for--

“A ship, Captain!” Peter shouts, pointing ahead. They’ve already passed the port, and coming around the bend toward them is the Black Widow. Captain Romanova’s black and red hourglass flag is unmistakable. Bucky’s heart sinks.

“Unless you’d like to lose your head to the Widow, I suggest you correct course,” Bucky calls over the sound of iron clanking as cannons are readied. Even from the distance, he can see Captain Schmidt crush his jaw and his lip curl. 

“This is not over,” he shouts, before calling out the orders. His sails shift, and the ship veers away, back toward Charleston. Bucky lets go of the breath he’d been holding.

The Black Widow turns and drifts out to sea as The Winter Soldier catches up. When he comes abreast of her starboard side, Natalia steps up to the railing.

“Good morning, Captain Barnes,” she calls sweetly. Her red hair burns brightly in the sunlight, and Clint is suddenly beside him. He doesn’t have to look to know his jaw is nearly on the deck. Bucky elbows him.

“Captain Romanova, how can I ever show my gratitude?” he calls back, grinning. Her first mate, a beautiful curvy brunette with lips as red as Nat’s hair is standing beside her, smirking. The men on the Soldier gather near the railing, flexing and blowing kisses. The men on the Widow draw their swords.

“You can give me your ship,” she suggests.

“Oh god she looked right at me, Bucky did you see her look right at me?” Clint gushes quietly. Bucky elbows him again. 

“How about a cask of wine?” 

She flashes her teeth in a grin that would put a great white to shame. “Two.”

They make the exchange, and he blows her a kiss. She blows him the finger and veers away.

“Christ, is it time for breakfast yet?” Tony grouses.

“Open the sails. Put as much distance as you can between us and Schmidt. Then you can have breakfast. Send mine and Steve’s up,” he says, making for his cabin. He feels boxed in from all sides, and all he wants is to have eyes on Steve.

“So you’re keeping him now?” Tony asks. Bucky turns back, shrugs.

“Keep your friends close.”

“Fuck your hot enemies?” Tony finishes, but there's no heat in it. He'll respect whatever Bucky decides to do, as will the rest of them. But it doesn't change the original plan—just delays it a bit. They'll have to let Steve off at the next port, so he can get back to his life.

Bucky tries a grin but it comes up short. “Something like that.”

Steve is sitting behind his desk. The mess Bucky’d made of it a few nights ago is righted and organized, but not by his hand.

“How do you know Natalia Romanova?” Steve asks. Bucky sighs and sits on the edge of his bed, bracing his hands on either side of his thighs. He could lie and claim all pirates know each other, but he can tell Steve already knows it’s more than that. He's not stupid.

“She sailed with me, under Alexander the Red.”

Steve stands. “Did you really kill him?”

“Yes. I didn't want the ship. He tried to kill me in Haiti during the riots, so I killed him first.” Bucky takes a deep breath. “He raised me. I knew he didn’t love me, a man like that can’t… but I never thought he’d try to kill me.”

He'd grown into a strong young man, charming, and the crew loved him. He never wanted to be Captain, but Alexander was nothing if not pragmatic, and decided the risk was too great.

Natalia is the only other person on the planet who knows that, and she only has her suspicions. It feels good, it feels right, that Steve should know this.

Steve sits down next to Bucky, the edges of their hands just touching. It sends a shock through him. Something to do with surprise and desire and gratitude.

“Sorry we couldn’t drop you off,” he says weakly. Bucky can’t bear to look at him, but feels him shrug.

“If I’m staying until next port, you might as well let me work. I hate just sitting around.”

That seems about right. Bucky smiles.

When he looks out across his ship that afternoon and sees Steve pulling at the ropes, following his commands, he can’t quite get his lips to stop curling.

When he looks out at the sea under billowy grey clouds, it still sparkles.

* * *

Another storm hits that night. They’d seen it coming and had battened down the hatches, but Bucky still surveys the deck for a while. The rain is coming down in sheets, the wind tossing the ship back and forth and the waves crashing into the hull like thunder.

He comes back into the cabin drenched, his shaggy hair plastered to his face. Steve relights the candle that had blown out. Bucky does a turn about the room, casts a dark look at Steve that has him shivering, then opens the door again. The room goes dark as the candle is extinguished immediately. 

“Leave it,” Steve shouts over the whistle of the wind. He hears the door slam again but can’t see which side of it Bucky is on.

Without bothering to relight the candle, Steve stumbles blindly toward the door and crashes into Bucky, who seems to have been coming his way. The sway of the ship sends them both tumbling onto the bed, Steve on top of Bucky.

The pirate isn’t a small man, but he’s smaller than Steve, and just as Steve had suspected, built of sinewy muscle from shoulder to knee. Steve thinks this must be what losing your mind feels like. When your hands are no longer under your own command; they reach out to touch him of their own volition.

Bucky has been pulling him, pushing him, without seeming to know it, without even trying. The way he commands the deck, voice strong and sure carrying on the breeze, the way his fingers moved over Steve’s bruises, the look on his face when he touched himself the day before.

Steve leans down to put his mouth on Bucky’s skin—anywhere he can get in the darkness, which turns out to be his jaw—but he leans back quickly so he can play it off as the movement of the ship if he needs to. But Bucky cants his hips and arches up, seeking more. So Steve leans in again, pressing his lips against the scratch of short stubble on Bucky’s face, peppering light kisses until he reaches his lips. Bucky opens his mouth instantly, arms coming around Steve’s shoulders to pull him closer, dipping his tongue against Steve’s.

In the darkness, with the swell of the wind and waves ensconcing them, it feels as though they’re the only two people in the world.

Steve moans into Bucky’s mouth when the movement of the ship rocks them together. As his eyes adjust to the darkness he can make out the lines of his face, the slackness of his mouth when Steve kisses down his chest. His clothes are wet and clinging, and Steve wrestles them off without care for tearing them. He knows Bucky has plenty more in a chest at the foot of the bed. For all he wears ragged green sweaters, he’s a rich man.

Bucky is tugging at the hem of Steve’s tunic, so he lifts up and pulls it over his head. Bucky’s hands are cold and wet as they trail up Steve’s chest and wrap around the back of his neck to pull their lips together again.

Steve hasn’t sailed in over a year, had forgotten about the callouses that come with a life on the sea, but he remembers now, as Bucky’s rough hands slide down his back.

Bucky dips his fingers under Steve’s waistband, reaching down to palm his ass and grind them together. The friction, Bucky’s eagerness, the swelling hunger, it rips a gasps from Steve’s throat.

 _“Bucky_.”

Bucky makes a sound that’s halfway between a moan and a growl.

“Say it again,” he says on a sigh, sucking a bruise on Steve’s collarbone and pushing his breeches off his hips.

Steve obliges.

* * *

The sun is red when it rises the next morning, casting a pretty glow over Steve’s sun-freckled face. His eyelashes are obscenely long and soft-looking, lying against his skin.

Bucky could dress, find himself breakfast and go command his ship. Perhaps Steve would rather ignore their tryst, blame it on the wildness of the weather, the threat of death. He’s far too respectable to fall for a filthy pirate, anyway. Navymen don’t do that kind of thing.

Instead, Bucky presses his lips against the other man’s throat. He tastes just as good in the morning light as in the darkness, and Bucky’s blood stirs. He can feel Steve waking slowly beneath him, feels the vibrations rumble in his throat on a contented hum.

“Do you want breakfast?” Bucky asks, flicking his tongue over a nipple. Steve sucks in a sharp breath.

“No. I don’t ever need to eat again, or leave this bed for anything.”

Bucky chuckles against Steve’s belly button, relief and happiness swelling in him with such sudden clarity he feels almost dizzy.

“Bucky!” Clint shouts from somewhere down the ship and Steve groans a half laugh.

“Again?”

Bucky’s disappointed, but the tone of Clint’s voice makes a shiver run down his spine. He rolls out of bed, shoving his shirt over his head and throwing open the door as he laces up his breeches.

Steve tuned in to his body language and is behind him in a flash. Clint looks on the verge of shouting orders to fly the sails and when he follows his line of sight, he understands why.

There’s a black and red flag floating on the ocean, caught up on a piece of splintered wood. A trail of debris leads away, and it’ll kill more time than they have to spare, but he gives the order to follow it anyway. Clint looks so grateful he might start sobbing.

After an hour they come upon the bulk of the wreckage. The ship is destroyed—simply gone. All that remains above the surface are some crates and barrels, splinters of wood, mast and sail. When he sees a flash of red bobbing on a floating barrel, he leaps over the railing into the water. When he breaks the surface again, he hears two splashes behind him.

Nat is nearly unconscious. Her brunette first mate is barely keeping her head above water on a piece of nearby debris. They find no more survivors.

Clint gives up his cabin for the ladies to recoup. Tony is the closest thing to a doctor they have on board, and all he can do is get them dry and give them some water and food. Nat has a nasty gash on her arm that they bandage up best they can.

Nat is feverish, in and out of consciousness, babbling. 

“Peggy, Peggy,” she begs.

“She’s here,” Bucky says, pressing her shoulders gently back down. “She’s ok.”

Nat sags back into sleep.

Peggy is remarkably unblemished, save for some bruises and possibly a broken rib—she winces and gasps in unconsciousness when they lift her over the railing.

Bucky wants to sit with Nat, but knows she wouldn’t appreciate it anyway, so he gives the order to return to course. They’ll have quite a few people to drop at the next port, since Nat would rather die than be under anyone else’s command again, and anyone sailing under her is sure to follow her anywhere.

Bucky places Clint at watch outside his own cabin door. There are a few ruffians on his crew he’s worried about, and there’s no one better than Clint to make sure no harm comes to their captive guests. His eyes had shone with fury and pride when tasked with the duty. 

Bucky returns to his cabin and sits heavily behind his desk. Steve has trailed in after him and sits on the crate he’s been using as a chair at his left. The blonde man opens a drawer and pulls out a deck of cards, deals a hand.

Steve beats him, but barely.

“I’ll take my cup of wine now, please,” Steve says through a smirk.

“I wasn’t aware that bet applied to all future games. What if I had won? You can’t promise to not arrest me more than once.”

“I think I could’ve figured something else out.” The low tone in his voice has Bucky half hard in the blink of an eye, and he pushes his chair out from his desk, intending to get up and throw Steve on the floor, or maybe against the wall. But Steve is up quicker, and shoves him back down in the chair.

He leans over and kisses him, wet and hot and promising, sucking Bucky’s tongue and swirling his own around it.

He feels full to bursting. Like he’s a glass that’s sat empty for so long he doesn’t know what to do when he’s suddenly filled.

Steve kisses down his neck and looks up through his eyelashes when he’s on his knees in front of him. With a quick tug, he loosens Bucky’s breeches and pulls them off his ass, then yanks Bucky behind the knees so he’s slouched down low in his chair.

“You don’t have to,” Bucky breathes and Steve smiles up at him, like Bucky’s the sun itself shining upon him.

“I know.” 

Steve’s not his captive anymore. Hasn’t been for days, and he still takes the head of Bucky’s cock between his lips.

Bucky breathes all the expletives he’s ever heard as Steve takes him into his mouth, sucking, licking. The sight of his blonde head bobbing in his lap is too much, and Bucky tilts his head back so he won’t come already just from the sight of him.

When he can take it no more, he pulls Steve’s face up so he can kiss him. Pushing him back onto the floor, he rolls and pulls Steve on top of him. He wants to ravage him up down and sideways—and he will, later. But right now, he wants to feel small. Maybe Steve has cottoned on to this by now, because he brackets Bucky’s head between his elbows so he’s trapped between his arms and leans down to kiss him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, my friends!


	4. All the Young Laddies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the sun is low in the sky, Steve feels Bucky’s eyes on him as he ties down the sails for the night. He wants to go to him, and the desire is so strong it makes fear, jealousy and anger twist in his chest.

Though Wade lobbies hard for the privilege, they decide that Peter, the least threatening of all of them, should take the women their food. Bucky wants to tell them not to worry about any of them intimidating Nat, but he’s not supposed to know her that well. She wants her past aboard the Soldier serving Pierce to disappear and he’ll respect her wishes, just like he respects everything else about her.

Peter reports that Nat is awake that afternoon, and Bucky knocks on the door once before entering. Peggy is sleeping on the bed, her face turned toward the wall and Nat is sitting by her feet, a hand on her ankle.

When she sees him she stands. He never could tell what she was thinking, but when he opens his arms, she comes to him.

“I’m so sorry, Nat,” he breathes into her hair. She allows herself only a moment more, her shoulders trembling but once, then she pulls away.

“I want my weapons back.”

“No.”

“What, you think I’m going to try taking your ship?”

When he’s silent a moment too long she makes a face at him. He rattles his head.

“No, of course not. But they don’t know you like I do. You’re perfectly safe, Clint will be right outside your door.”

“You think that makes me feel better?”

“It should.”

Nat shakes her head, unconvinced, but with no other course of action.

“Look, I know you’ll say no, but I feel I should offer. You’re welcome to stay aboard. I’d be glad to sail with you again.”

Nat smiles, sadness in the tilt of her lips and the lines around her eyes. “You know me well.”

* * *

Steve pulls on his trousers and gets up in search of his shirt. Bucky still half dozing where he left him on the bed.

There’s a pleasant ache in his muscles he hasn’t felt in years, since before he made Captain. An ache that speaks of hard work, of tangible worth. He knows his merit amongst the crew, feels a fellowship with them in it. Feels alive.

There’s a golden tan on his skin from the glare of the intermittent sunlight reflecting on the ocean surface, and there's a handsome pirate Captain who can't seem to keep his hands off him.

Steve has never been happier. Not in the whole of his life. 

The map on the desk catches his eye and he bends over it, glancing at Bucky surreptitiously. There’s not much he can do with the knowledge of their bearing—not much he will do, anymore, but he’s not sure Bucky would see it that way.

Bucky has them coursed in an arc to the next port, which will add an extra three days, if not more, to their journey. If Schmidt—or the Navy—is still following them, it’ll give them the chance to catch up. Steve opens his mouth to say so, but closes it again. It’s not his place to question the Captain of the ship he’s captive on. Though he hasn’t been captive in the true sense for almost two weeks.

He hears Bucky get up from the bed and come behind him, snaking his arms around his waist and gliding hands up over his chest. When he presses his lips between his shoulder blades, Steve feels regret welling behind his eyes. This happiness is not built to last. And Steve will be left all the more empty.

“Any suggestions for our course, Captain Rogers?” His lips move against Steve’s skin when he speaks.

_Out to sea! On an adventure! Anywhere!_

“We’re taking the long way,” Steve says quietly. Bucky stills, and steps away to dress. Steve turns to watch him. His lips, pink and plump from Steve’s kisses, are pressed into a tight line, and those beautiful eyes are shuttered to him.

Steve would say something to fix this, if he knew what was wrong. He only wants Bucky to rethink the course for the sake of their safety. Or admit that he’d done it so they’d have more time together.

Instead he says nothing, and Bucky leaves the room to run his ship from the quarterdeck.

Steve pulls the sails with the men that afternoon, until Peter calls down over the deck.

“Hydra ship 12 o’clock!”

“Is it Schmidt?” Bucky calls up.

“No, smaller. Changing course for shore.”

All eyes on the deck turn to their Captain, Steve included. Tony bounces on the balls of his feet and Rumlow sneers. They expect him to give chase.

“Stay course,” Bucky says finally, and heads down the stairs to the deck.

“Stay course?” Tony repeats. Bucky grabs two fistfuls of the pirate’s shirt and bares his teeth.

“Stay. _Course._ ”

He casts a challenging look over the deck, then disappears into his cabin. Steve follows. Bucky is visibly reining himself in from making a mess of his desk again while trying to pretend he isn’t.

“They’ll mutiny,” Steve says.

“No, they won’t.”

“Are you sure? About all of them?”

Bucky crushes his jaw, hands set on his hips.

“You and I both know what’s on that ship. I want them stopped, your men want to loot. If you think you’re sparing me from something, you’re not.”

Bucky shakes his head, eyes dark and regretful. Steve steps out of the way to let Bucky out the door.

“Give chase,” he calls over the deck, and cheers go up as the men unfurl the sails.

When they’re within shooting distance, Bucky grabs Steve’s arm where he’s lashing down a rope.

“Go stay with Nat. I need Clint for this.”

Steve obeys without hesitation. He has no desire for gold or violence.

Nat is holding a sword when he enters, standing in the middle of the small room. Peggy is sitting up in the bed, holding a dagger. Steve cants his head at them. Bucky had disarmed them when they were brought aboard, but somehow he is not surprised.

“Steve Rogers,” he says for an introduction, then turns to watch out the porthole.

They say nothing, but Natalia is glancing between him and the door like she’s expecting someone to come through it.

The skirmish is short lived. This ship has half the cannons as The Soldier and the crew has quailed upon seeing Bucky’s red star flag. Most of them surrender. The pirates kill those who don’t and shackle the rest.

“Barnes is using his prisoners to guard his prisoners, now?” Nat says. She’s tucked the sword away somewhere and has her arms crossed over her chest, looking at him.

“What makes you think I’m not on the crew?”

“You’re a Navyman.”

“I defected.”

She gives him a hard look, which he returns. To his surprise, the corners of her mouth quirk up in a ghost of a smile.

* * *

 The Hydra cargo is weapons, which come aboard The Soldier by the crate, and some slaves, who are untied and left where they are with weapons to use as they choose.

They set the ship on course for shore and leave them be.

Steve waits outside the ladies’ door until Clint comes back to relieve him. He follows Bucky’s orders to turn the sails and take them back out to sea, back onto their arcing course to port.

When the sun is low in the sky, Steve feels Bucky’s eyes on him as he ties down the sails for the night. He wants to go to him, and the desire is so strong it makes fear, jealousy and anger twist in his chest.

They eat with the crew in the hold. It’s the first time since Bucky dragged him to his cabin that Steve has not taken a meal there, and eating amongst pirates is strange. He makes small talk with Tony and Peter, who are so effervescent it’s exhausting. Bucky is leaning against the hull, silent, until Steve glances back again and finds him gone. Steve slips away up to the deck, giving Clint a wave where he sits outside his own cabin door.

Bucky is standing in the middle of his cabin with his back to the door, and Steve doesn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around his shoulders. Bucky sags back against him. Steve pushes him over to the bed and lays them down. Bucky turns in his arms so he can press his face against Steve’s neck.

They lay like that for a while, until Steve pulls back just far enough that he can press kisses over Bucky’s eyelids, his cheeks and his lips.

There’s some sort of riotous cacophony drifting in from the deck, and finally Steve has to ask.

“What _is_ that?”

Bucky chuckles, and Steve can feel it vibrate in his chest.

“Come on,” he says as he pushes Steve up. “You’ll like this.”

* * *

Bucky is warm all over, somehow. Even after the horrors of the Hydra ship, of having to run his sword through the stomach of a young sailor with more bravado than brains. He feels safe, bracketed between Steve’s arms, the strong, steady heartbeat pounding against his own.

He realizes he’s linked fingers with the larger man as he pulls him out onto the deck. Steve doesn’t seem to notice, other than to hold onto him loosely, as Bucky watches the smile that stretches his beautiful lips at the sight on deck.

“They’re trying to impress the women,” Bucky says in his ear, and Steve laughs, head tilted back, eyes closed. Bucky has the sudden sinking realization that this moment will haunt him for the rest of his life.

One of the pirates has a pipe flute, one has a guitar. They’re not good, but they do what they can with them. The crew usually gets more entertainment out of making fun of them than enjoying the music.

Clint raises his brows to ask permission and Bucky nods, so he knocks and opens the cabin door to stick his head in and say something. After a moment, Nat emerges, looking bemused, with Peggy behind her, moving stiffly.

There’s a flurry of activity to push crates over for them to sit upon, mugs of wine thrust at them, and the band—such as it is—strikes up with renewed fervor. 

Tony is passing out mugs and gaily splashing rum into them from an earthenware jug he carries in one finger.

Three or four of them start singing the tune and Nat rolls her eyes so hard Bucky is surprised she doesn’t tip over with the force of it. 

 

_If all the young lasses were locks on a gate_

_Then I’d be the key to insert and rotate_

_If all the young lasses were boats on the ocean_

_Then I’d be the waves and I’d show ’em the motion_

 

Steve laughs again, so Bucky leans in close.

“You know this one?”

“Not this particular one, no.”

The swelling happiness in him is impossible to contain, so Bucky swings in front of him and takes both his hands in his, joining in singing the next verse as he spins Steve around.

 

_If all the young laddies were coconuts sweet_

_Then I’d suck out their juices and chew on their meat_

_If all the young laddies were needles and pins_

_Then I’d be cushion to hold their pricks in_

 

Steve is laughing, trying not to trip over his feet or the other pirates on the deck. A cheer goes up from the rest of the crew as they start dancing wildly, letting loose now that Bucky has set the tone.

Nat refuses to dance, though she’s pestered the entire time. Peggy is still in delicate condition and is doted on by all, given trinkets, plates of sweet cornbread and offered marriage.

They dance and sing and laugh for hours after the ladies tire and return to their cabin. Steve’s eyes are sparkling as he watches the proceedings, until Bucky takes a step closer to him. He’s nearly pressed against his back, but not quite touching. Even so, a shudder ripples through him and when Bucky turns to head for the cabin, Steve is right behind him.

Bucky wants to round on him and push him against the door, but he makes himself move to sit at the edge of the bed. Steve is standing by the door watching him, eyes dark and a little sad until he moves to stand in front of Bucky and places his palm against his cheek, just looking at him. It's far too honest a moment, so Bucky tugs him down into a kiss, pulling him onto the bed. He throws leg over Steve's hips so he's straddling him. Having the large, powerful man beneath him, writhing and panting, does all sorts of things to Bucky; has been for the last week, probably always would, if always was an option for them.

He skims his hands down Steve's arms--Bucky loves those arms--and links their fingers together, brings them up above Steve's head. He kisses him long and slow and deep, until Steve is begging.

"Come on, Buck, come on," he breathes. He pulls free of Bucky's hands to hold onto his hips, hard enough to bruise, grinding Bucky down onto his cock.

Bucky shifts lower, between Steve's legs and strips him of his trousers so he can get his mouth on him. The noises Steve makes when he's buried in Bucky will sustain the pirate in times of trial for years to come.

But Steve is begging again, and Bucky is fast realizing that there is nothing he wouldn't do, if Steve asked it of him. So he slicks up a finger and Steve opens up so nice for him, takes his cock so beautifully that Bucky thinks he's finally found his calling.

He wasn't made for sailing or thieving, he was put on this earth for nothing other than fucking Steve Rogers.

* * *

Nat is bemoaning his course from behind his desk while Bucky stands in the doorway, surveying the crew as they work. Mostly Steve. It’s the first day that feels like summer, and Steve has his shirt threaded through the beltloops of his trousers as he scales the mast to loose the ropes. There’s a sheen of sweat gathering across his shoulders.

“Schmidt isn’t to be trifled with, Bucky, you can’t give him this opportunity,” Nat is saying, but Bucky is suddenly overcome with a deep sadness. They’ll reach port in five days, and Steve will be gone from him, probably forever.

He feels Nat behind him.

“So,” she says casually, but places a small hand on his back. “The Navyman?”

“What about him,” he says coldly, shrugging her hand off.

“He’ll stay, if you ask him to.”

He shakes his head. “No he won’t. This isn’t the life for him.”

“It’s not the life for you, either,” Nat says with such passion that he turns to look at her, but she’s already schooled her features back into a careful coolness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter here, just wanted to get it to you. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! Let me know your thoughts; it makes my day to hear from you!


	5. No Survivors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s for the best that this ends here. Steve can go on living the rest of his righteous life behind his desk at the Fort and never see Bucky again; tuck away the memory to warm him when the tedium of his existence threatens to drive him mad.

The night before they reach port, Steve senses a quiet awkwardness over the deck. Maybe it’s just him. Tony is still spewing nonsense like always and Clint is cracking jokes, but it seems strained. None of them speak directly to him.

When they put the ship to bed and Steve and Bucky retire to the Captain’s cabin, Steve feels a chill in the room that has nothing to do with the temperature of the balmy summer night. Bucky hasn’t spoken directly to him since that morning, either, so Steve lays himself down on the far end of the room as he’d done on the first few nights he’d spent in Bucky’s cabin.

Bucky pays him no mind, just sits on his bed with his back leant against the wall and opens a book.

But after ten minutes pass and he hasn’t turned the page, Steve stands. If this is their last night together, Steve is going to make it count. He doesn’t think holding off will make his heart break any less, anyway.

He pulls the book from Bucky’s hand and tosses it on the floor. Bucky, hands still up in the same position, glares up at him. Steve wants to map him out with his fingertips, his lips, his tongue, wants to commit every inch of James Barnes to his memory.

So he does.

He crawls over Bucky, crowding him the way he likes, straddling his hips and kisses him, hot and wet and filthy, like he’s never going to see him again. Bucky abandons all pretense and whimpers into his mouth, pulling him closer.

Steve traces the black lines on Bucky’s left arm with his tongue, presses kisses down his stomach, over his hip and thighs. Using the familiar glass jar of slick Bucky keeps in his bottom desk drawer, Steve fingers him open.

His moans, gasps and huffs are driving Steve crazy. But he still hasn’t said a word. Steve wants to say something about how much this has meant to him, how much he loves—no, not loves—adores—no, admires—him. But Bucky reaches forward and wraps his fingers around Steve’s dick, drawing him in, and all words escape him.

* * *

Steve fucks him slow and deep, leaning over his back to envelop him. Bucky feels worshipped. He feels _loved_.

Steve sinks his teeth into Bucky’s shoulder when he comes and it sends Bucky crashing over his own orgasm, Steve’s name falling from his lips on a moan.

Steve has his face pressed into the nape of his neck, seems content to stay there awhile. But Bucky wants to look at him, to touch him, to memorize every detail of him. Wants to repay him with some of the reverence he’s been gifted with, in any small way a man who was raised by Alexander the Red can.

So he shifts, turning under him. Steve groans when he slips from him, but is happy to be molded as Bucky likes.

He pulls Steve into his chest and strokes the back of his neck. It makes his shoulders shudder and if Steve sheds so much as one tear on his behalf, Bucky will cave like a dying star falling in on itself. But his breathing evens after a few moments and Bucky moves to retrieve a wet cloth from the bowl on the desk and gently cleans them both before slipping back into bed, where Steve folds him into his arms, tangling their legs together.

Long after Bucky is sure Steve is asleep, he presses his lips to his temple and begs, voice barely a whisper, “Don’t leave me. _Please._ ”

* * *

“Well,” Natalia says as she meets him at the gangplank. “Goodbye, then.” Then she’s striding down toward the bustle of the port, to find herself a new ship. 

“Goodbye, Captain, and thank you,” Peggy says as she passes, with an apologetic look for her Captain's nonchalance, and he dips his head to her. 

Clint is beside him, practically vibrating. He won’t ask, but he doesn’t have to.

“Go on,” Bucky says, gesturing toward where the women are being swallowed up by the crowd and Clint pulls him into a tight hug.

“See you,” he says.

“Of course you will.” There’s never any guarantee, but Bucky hopes so.

Clint bounds down after the ladies, who barely acknowledge him.

He’ll have to find himself another hand, now. He supposes Tony will have to do as first mate, though it makes him cringe.

Steve is milling about the deck, waiting for him. Bucky sends Peter off with a list of supplies. They’ve been running low on fresh fruit since they’d had to skip Charleston, and it’s been making them all cranky.

“Come on,” Bucky says to him, leading the way down the gangplank. Having his feet on solid ground after two months at sea makes his footsteps clunky and stilted for a few minutes before he gets the hang of it again. He takes them down a side street, where it’s a little quieter. When he turns, he’s Captain Barnes, eyes shuttered and empty. He can't quite muster up the nonchalance, but he channels Natalia as best he can.

“Well, goodbye then.”

Steve’s heart is trying to claw its way out of his throat, and it’s blocking any words he might like to say. Bucky’s lips tighten, a cold look passing over his face as he brushes by him. Steve turns in time to see Bucky disappear out into the street, lost in the rush of the port.

Bucky makes a beeline for a pub. He wants to order himself one good bottle of whisky and drink it alone in his cabin until his men return to the ship and they can sail away again.

“Captain,” Rumlow says, suddenly at his left. The voice makes Bucky’s lips curl in disgust. “Can I buy you a drink?”

Bucky sighs, struggling between drowning in self pity and flying around in a rage.

“Why the fuck not.”

* * *

Steve wanders down the dock, halfheartedly looking for a passenger vessel to take him back to Fort Fury. The thought leaves him cold. There’s nothing for him there but a sparse room and self-doubt.

But he couldn’t have stayed aboard the Winter Soldier, even if the words Bucky whispered to him the night before weren’t simply a dream, even if what transpired between them weren’t born of lust and loneliness. He couldn’t have stayed, even if it was what Bucky truly wanted. Couldn’t stand by and watch them rob merchant vessels, kill innocent men.

It’s for the best that this ends here. Steve can go on living the rest of his righteous life behind his desk at the Fort and never see Bucky again; tuck away the memory to warm him when the tedium of his existence threatens to drive him mad.

He should be paying more attention to what ships can bring him back to New York, so he glances up at the marina, and his eyes catch on a blazing red skull flying above a heavily armored ship. _Hydra._ He stops dead in the middle of the bustling boardwalk. An angry sailor curses as he bumps into him, and Steve steps out of the bustle, eyes scanning the rest of the ships that stretch along the shore. 

When he spots the red, white and blue flag of a Navy ship slowly sailing around the harbor toward the port, he turns and runs.

* * *

Bucky thought he could do it, get lost in liquor and lust as had been his practice before he’d taken sunshine personified captive, but he couldn’t. He tumbles out the back door of the pub, wanting nothing more than to be alone.

“Stay where you are,” a cool voice commands.

“Goddammit.” _Of course._ He looks up blearily to see the dark-skinned man who’d been with Steve the night they took him captive. He has his pistol trained on him, and two Navymen at his flanks, though they look vaguely surprised to see him.

The pub door slams open behind him, and Bucky glances over his shoulder to see Rumlow framed there.

“Warn the ship!” Bucky yells, waving him off, but instead of going back through the pub, Rumlow takes off running, in the opposite direction of the dock.

_“Goddammit!”_

“Where’s Captain Rogers?”

“Somewhere around here, I suppose,” Bucky says, waving his hand haplessly.

Suddenly a figure comes bowling down the alley, tackling one Navyman to the ground and swiping his leg to fell the other. Steve stands, a pistol in each hand as he takes two steps backward toward Bucky.

“The hell, Rogers!” the dark man blurts. “I been chasing your ass for two months!”

“Sorry, Sam,” Steve says, backing Bucky out of the alley.

“There’s a name for this syndrome!” Sam calls as Steve turns and shoves Bucky out of the alley. They run toward the dock, nearly bowling over Peter, his arms full of clementines in red mesh bags.

“Navy!” Bucky says, and Peter surges ahead of them, up the gangplank where a flurry of activity is already in motion. Bucky realizes vaguely that someone must have tipped off his crew to make for a hasty exit—and since Rumlow is nowhere to be seen, that someone must have been Steve.

Bucky shouts orders and pulls the sails with the rest of them, and as they make their way out of the harbor, he looks back to see Schmidt’s Hydra ship pulling out after them.

“Fuck!”

Bucky is sweating and fatigued when they’re cruising along at a click fast enough to satisfy him. The liquor effectively scared out of him, he pulls Steve around by the arm.

“How did the Navy know where to find us?”

Steve crushes his jaw and Bucky’s stomach drops. He knows already, but he wants to hear him fucking say it.

“Steve how—”

“I left them a message,” he blurts. Bucky curls his lip. He leans back on his right foot, fist clenched at his side like he might take a swing. Steve lifts his chin to take it, and Bucky stills. He turns on his heel and stalks up to the quarterdeck.

“Bucky!” Steve says, grabbing onto his wrist. Bucky spins, flinging him off.

“Don’t you fucking touch me,” he growls, and Steve’s expression falls. Bucky wants to be glad for it, but all he feels is sorrow.

* * *

When Sam spies the rowboat drifting toward him, he gives the order to pull it up. There are bullet holes in the side of the raft, and Steve is bleeding from his calf.

“Dammit Rogers, what now?”

The blonde man’s expression is stony, grim and determined.

“I fucked up, Sam.”

When he gets to private quarters and the doctor is taking a look at his leg, Steve clenches his jaw and looks up at Sam with eyes that are dark with pain and regret.

“They’re docking in a cove up ahead. They’ve taken damage from a skirmish with a Hydra ship, but we can still get to them.”

“Schmidt? We saw him sailing after you. What does he want?”

“For Buck—Captain Barnes to stop looting his ships.”

He hasn’t seen Steve look so anguished since those horrible weeks leading up to his mother’s death. Something happened on The Winter Soldier that shook the steadiest person Sam’s ever known. Maybe he’ll hear the tale later, but for now he’s just glad to have his friend back. 

“Alright, buddy, just relax. We’ll be home in no time.”

They hear the telltale sound of cannonfire as they continue on their course, and true to Steve’s word, The Soldier has dropped anchor in a cove and is heavily damaged, her main mast broken in two and floating in the water. There’s a lull in the shelling and Schmidt and Captain Barnes shout across the water to each other, but they're too far away yet to make out the words.

“Cease fire!” Sam shouts, but isn’t in position to fire on anybody, so is ignored.

Steve is gripping the railing with white knuckles, jaw clenched and looking green around the gills.

Because they’re anchored, The Soldier can aim true and they fire cannons again, hitting the hull of the Hydra ship. But it comes at a price. They’re sitting ducks. The Red Skull fires back, blowing the deck to splinters. A lantern must have broken in the hull, because red flames begin to lick out through the smashed portholes.

“Shit,” Sam mutters and gives the order to send out rowboats for survivors. The Red Skull is taking on water slow enough that most of those not hit by cannonballs should be saved. Already men are swimming toward the Navy ship. Captain Schmidt is not among them.

The Winter Soldier sinks in the bay. They find no survivors.

 

* * *

_**Six Months** _ **_Later_**

* * *

 

“Well, how does it feel to be retired?” Sam asks, where they sit having a beer and a bite in the dining room at Thor’s. 

“Damn good, I gotta say.”

It’s true. He can do whatever he wants now, and it makes a thrill shoot through him. _Freedom, adventure._

“So, what _are_ you going to do now? Become a cobbler? A crusty old fisherman?”

Steve laughs, spins his mug on the table. “Actually I was thinking I might buy a ship. Shuttle rich people’s things to the continent.”

“And where are you going to get the money to buy a ship?" While the Navy provides a roof and food, the pay is pretty terrible.

“I found an interested party to invest in me.”

Steve isn’t looking at him, and a blush is starting to creep up his neck. It puts Sam on guard.

Sam squints at his friend. “Oh?”

Steve looks up past Sam’s shoulder suddenly and his whole face lights up, like the Lord has come again.

“Here he is now.” Sam turns as he stands and nearly falls backward. “Sam, I’d like you to meet James Buchanan.”

Captain Barnes stands there, nervous and fidgeting but with a goofy grin that matches Steve’s, wearing a blue peacoat, his shaggy hair cut and coiffed in a halfway respectable manner while still managing to be rakish.

After a moment, Sam juts his hand out.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Buchanan.”

Barnes heaves a grateful sigh and shakes his hand heartily. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Sam, the pleasure’s mine. And please, call me Bucky.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THERE'S STILL ONE MORE CHAPTER FOR YOU!!
> 
> Thanks to everyone~
> 
> Much love.


	6. Intermezzo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We die if we run, we die if we fight. This is our only chance."

“Bucky!” Steve shouts, pleading and angry. Bucky stops, but doesn’t turn. “Of course I sent them a message, you kidnapped me! I didn’t know you, then.”

The crew is silent, staring blatantly. Bucky jerks his head toward his cabin and Steve follows him in.

“Christ,” Bucky says, sitting heavily in the chair behind his desk and leaning his face into his palms. “We can’t outrun them both. We can’t fight them both.” He scoffs. “Rumlow ran, Clint’s gone. We’re two men down.”

 _We._ Of course he means his crew, but it makes something click inside of him. _Why_ would he _ever_ leave this man?

“If you need a first mate, you’ve got one,” Steve says unequivocally, irrevocably.

“You’re not going to fight your Navymen.”

“No.” No, he’d never do that, and Bucky would never ask him to. “I have another idea. But you’re not gonna like it.”

* * *

Bucky listens with increasing disbelief to Steve’s plan, but doesn’t interrupt.

“You’re insane. Should I point out to you the many ways in which we could all die?”

“We die if we run, we die if we fight. This is our only chance. And if you need to restore your faith in me, I can show you the tallies under my name,” Steve says, gesturing toward the door, to where they both know his name is carved into the hull of the ship.

“Chess and cribbage? Steve...”

Steve plants his palms on the desk in front of Bucky, who is eyeing him warily.

“Trust me.”

Bucky’s lips tighten and he shakes his head once, but then he stands and Steve can tell from the set of his shoulders that he's all in.

“Alright, punk, we do it your way.”

Steve is in the rowboat about to release the pulleys when he realizes he may not see Bucky for several months, if ever again. When he turns, Bucky is there on the other side of the railing, grabbing his face between his hands and kisses him once, hard.

“Please come back to me,” Steve says, before setting off in a rowboat lined with pots and pans.

 

_**_

_"Send the rest of the crew away before Schmidt can get to you. Keep him talking and he won't notice it's only you."_

** 

 

_**_

_“He'll come up on you in the dinghy before he gets to us.”_  

_“He won’t waste his cannonballs on me.”_

He uses plenty of bullets though, one of which splinters a piece of wood right into Steve’s calf.

**

 

** 

_“Get him to fire on you first. You won’t be able to reload, so save the cannons until the Navy can see you._

_“You may not sink him, but you won’t have to. Light the fire in the hull and use a barrel to float down the shore with the debris.”_

**

 

Watching the Red Skull fire on the Winter Soldier is the hardest thing Steve has ever done. No way of knowing if his plan had worked, or if it had gotten Bucky killed.

But when he’s patched up, retired, healed and set up with his pension in an apartment not far from the coast, he thinks waiting is the hardest thing he’s ever done. He knows he very well might wait forever. He's prepared to do it.

He stops by Thor’s every night, as Bucky instructed. When he looks into the large man’s handsome face, it’s hard not to feel jealous. Bucky had mentioned Thor once or twice, always in high regard and with allusion to his magic hands.

After a week, Steve takes him up on an offer for a massage:

“You look tense, my friend.”

Steve has to laugh at that.

He breaks down in tears on the table, and when Thor carries on as if nothing at all were amiss, Steve decides he could like him. Bruce sits with him many times, reading in the parlor. He meets Jane and Pepper, and one night Thor finally asks him.

“What are you waiting for?”

“Who,” Steve corrects, and Thor says no more about it, except to offer Steve a room to rent, with dinner nightly included in the price. He accepts.

He insists upon getting in everyone’s way, trying to help where he can and occupy his mind with something other than Bucky. Pepper sends him out to pick up supplies from the docks to save on the delivery fee, and it appeases him.

He waits for four months.

When there’s a knock on his door in the middle of the night, he flies out of bed and hits the floor in a scramble.

“You have a guest in the parlor,” Thor says happily, and Steve could just kiss him. Instead, Thor steps aside to allow Steve to run down the stairs, wearing nothing but his long shirt.

Tony and Peter are in the dining room and they may greet him as he passes by the doorway, but he can’t make sense of it. He skids to a stop in the parlor, where Bucky stands.

He’s alive. He’s _here_.

Steve folds him into his arms and breathes against his neck. Bucky holds him back just as tightly. Steve pulls back to kiss him; it’s chaste, but it’s all he needs.

Steve finally pulls back enough to look at him. He’s had his hair cut. It no longer brushes his shoulders or is long enough to pull into a bun at the back of his head. It’s cropped close on the sides, like Steve’s, but left longer on the top so it falls across his forehead pleasingly. The watery smile that lights up his face is breathtaking. Steve could look at him forever and never tire of it.

“You’re indecent, Steve,” Bucky whispers, grinning. Steve barks a slightly hysterical laugh.

“Then you better take me back upstairs.”

So he does.

* * *

“Are you sure you’d rather work the sails? You know you can run the ship as well as I can," Bucky asks, his critical eye sweeping over the new wood railings, masts, riggings and helm.

They just signed the documentation to purchase their very own ship. Bucky'd had no idea the kind of paperwork that went into legally owning a vessel, but seeing his and Steve's names signed side by side, well...his smile still hadn't subsided. It wasn't a new ship by any means, but newer than The Soldier had been when Bucky was just a boy. He and Steve stand aboard The Avenger where it sits docked in New York harbor, taking stock of all they need before they can set sail next month.

“Better, even. But I kind of like it when you bark orders at me,” Steve replies, abandoning any pretense of writing notes in favor of sidling up to Bucky. The sparkle in those clear blue eyes calls to every part of him.

“I’ll bark all the orders you want as long as you keep f—”

“Ugh, my virgin ears,” Tony complains as he strolls up the gangplank, canvas sack slung over his shoulder. Bucky freezes, one finger still tucked into Steve's waistband.

“Stark, what are you doing?”

“Oh please, like you’re not going to hire me.”

It's true they need a crew, though fewer than they had expected, as former crewmen from The Soldier had been slowly trickling in. Most of them had split off on his trek by land back to New York after The Soldier sank at sea, choosing to take up on other ships or find work in the towns along the way. But Logan and Wade, who generally hated each other, somehow wandered back together. Dugan, Morita, Falsworth and Dernier all showed back up. Peter had stuck with him the whole time, but he hadn't seen Tony since the night they'd returned to Thor's.

“How did you even find us?”

Tony just laughs, not breaking stride. “You’re funny, Cap.” Then he disappears into the hold.

* * *

The crew is trembling. Except for those who shift their weight foot to foot in anticipation. Steve still thinks of them as _the pirates_ , though they haven't been that for the better part of a year.

He sent Bucky to their cabin, not trusting those aboard the approaching pirate ship --Barton mainly-- not to blow their cover.

Captain Romanova flies her black and red hourglass flag, recognizable enough that even their greenest sailors quail. Steve waves an arm, a smile tugging at his lips. It will be good to see her again, to set the record straight. She's approaching fast, a little too fast, but her guns aren't run out and it honestly doesn't even register as a possibility, but--

As soon as he can make out the lines of her face, she snarls at him.

"I should've killed you when I had the chance!"

She's turned and is calling out orders to ready for attack as Steve ineffectually shouts at her to listen to him. If he doesn't prepare the ship to retaliate, they're goners. But then Bucky's voice rings out behind him, casual and lazy.

"Captain Romanova."

Natalia sags against the railing as if struck, then holds out her hand to still the movements of her crew. Boots on planks, the clank of iron is suddenly silenced. There's only the splash of the ocean against the hull and the flap of wind in the sails. Natalia straightens and turns to where Bucky is leaning his forearms against the railing next to Steve.

"Let's not be too hasty."

"I knew it!" Clint crows from somewhere in the masts of Natalia's ship. 

"I'm Captain Buchanan, this is my first mate--" Bucky sweeps his hand over to Steve, whose heart is still trying to recover.

"Rogers. We've met. Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Captain Buchanan."

They sail in a circle around each other before making farewells. Steve salutes her and she reciprocates. Maybe her smile is a little rueful, or maybe it's just the glare of the sun in his eyes. He dips a low bow to Peggy, who blows him a kiss. Bucky salutes Natalia as well, and she flips him the bird, though her smile negates any offense.

"Au revoir, _Buchanan_ ," Clint calls, hanging off the main mast by a hand and a foot. Steve cups his hands around his mouth to shout as the ships drift apart.

"Nice to see you again, Cecil!"

A laugh echoes back to him across the water.

The new members of their crew who'd taken exception to the Captain's relationship with his first mate no longer curl their lips when Steve and Bucky retire to their shared cabin at night. Instead they look upon them with awed respect, and Tony no longer feels the need to threaten the insubordination out of them.

* * *

While The Avenger is technically a shipping vessel, Steve picks up more strays than he should, much to Bucky's dismay, and gets them into too much trouble with both Hydra and the Navy, plus plenty of other people, though Steve's rank and Lieutenant Sam Wilson prevent any lasting incarceration. 

"C'mon, Buck, you wouldn't have it any other way," Steve wheedles, smiling coyly in the way he knows Bucky can't resist. Bucky rolls his eyes, but pushes up into a kiss anyway, because really.

"No, I wouldn't."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading! This was so much fun to write, and hearing all your thoughts makes it even more so!
> 
> Love.


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